


Meddling Aphordite

by greisful



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, F/M, Humor, Humour, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 19:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7003546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greisful/pseuds/greisful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Aphrodite's favourite pastime was making people's lives more interesting. Drama, yelling, tears, betrayals and just about anything you can think of accompanied Aphrodite.</p>
  <p>Her latest victim: a certain one-eared man, and a woman by the name of Angelina. Too bad her life was already as complicated as there's was about to get.</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. She Sits On Her Throne

**Author's Note:**

>   
>   
>  banner by easterlies @ tda

Aphrodite was the goddess of love, beauty, lust and all of that good stuff. She sat on her throne on Olympus and looked down at the puny mortals who were all weak but quite clever people. It was her job to complicate the love lives of everyone on earth; it was her job to add drama in the romance department and to keep everything interesting. The mortals wouldn’t have agreed with her on this matter because they all claimed that they liked their lives drama free, but we all know that’s a lie.

The truth is, as much as all the mortals hated the fact that their lives were so complicated, they loved it. If none of that drama was there, then they would all be bored. There would be nothing to talk about, nothing to do, no reason to visit people. Everything would be about as interesting as watching paint dry. And that’s exactly what Aphrodite felt like she was doing: watching paint dry.

She’d been sitting up on Olympus for ages and ages with nothing to do!  She’d sat in her throne with her chin resting on the palm of her right hand for two days straight, just trying to find something interesting. The problem was, all of these mortals looked so uninteresting and boring, and she felt like nothing that she did would make any part of them more fascinating. They all wore such bland colours and they all blended in with one another. They all looked the same.

For the past two days she’d been looking down at the ground through the clouds and just watched everything. She waited for someone interesting to come walking by, she waited for _something_ to happen, but nothing did.

Aphrodite leaned back in her chair, gave a sigh and held her hand out for a drink. It was immediately brought to her by a wind spirit who bowed before leaving the goddess alone again to the thoughts that she didn’t have. Aphrodite set down her goblet, gave a sigh and went back to looking down at the humans. She scowled at the cloud blocking her view and using her hand, she moved it out of the way.

What she wouldn’t give for some sort of entertainment.

“Aphrodite, my dear, there you are!” _Anything but that,_ Aphrodite thought to herself.  She grimaced at the sound of the voice before forcing a smile onto her face and turning towards Hephaestus. Good gods, he really was an ugly man. None of the power that Aphrodite had would ever change that.

  
  
She wasn't entirely sure why she had married Hephaestus in the first place, after all, the two of them had absolutely nothing in common. There were days where she put quite a bit of thought into exactly why she had agreed to marry Hephaestus and the truth of the matter was that it was what everyone else expected of her. She didn't see him as anything beyond a brother and a friend and had no romantic feelings towards him. At all.   
  
“Yes, Hephaestus, how can I help you?” Aphrodite asked with a sigh and got down from her throne. She hugged Hephaestus briefly before pulling away and looping her arm through his in a friendly way. He was hopelessly in love with her –it was damn near impossible not to be– but Aphrodite just didn’t feel the same way.  
  
“I was wondering if you wanted to come with me and see what I have built,” Hephaestus said eagerly. Aphrodite gave him an apologetic look and a sad smile even though she was anything but sad.  
  
“I am sorry Hephaestus, I cannot, I am frightfully busy and I am afraid there is no room for me to see anything that you’ve built.” It wasn’t that she didn’t love Hephaestus, she did, but the man was just so damn dull that it was hard to see him as anything except a brother or a friend. He didn’t like what she liked, he never took her anywhere exciting, all he ever wanted to do was sit in his room and tinker away with his metal. And as much as Hephaestus liked her, he paid barely any attention to her at all.  
  
“Oh, alright, I understand how it is,” Hephaestus said, his smile fading little by little. Aphrodite hadn’t meant to make him sad and she hadn’t realized that it meant this much to him to show her what he’d made. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to go and take one look at the machine that Hephaestus had made. It would make him happy if she went and besides, he was a genius, perhaps he really had built something interesting.  
  
“I suppose I could make some time and come and see you in your shop later today, would that be okay?”  
  
“You do not have to do that you know,” Hephaestus said.  
  
“Heffy, I will be there, I promise,” Aphrodite said bringing out the nickname that she had for him and squeezing his arm. Hephaestus grinned at her, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and went on his way. Aphrodite couldn’t stop the small smile that was spreading on her face and shook her head softly. The sound of a whistle caught her attention and she looked up trying to find who it had been.  
  
She glanced at the door of the throne room and saw Hephaestus with his head sticking in the room and his lips pursed. He pointed towards the ceiling, winked at her and was gone. She looked up and watched in wonder as a bird made out of metal flew towards her and landed on the palm of her hand. It opened its beak and the most wonderful music Aphrodite had ever heard came from the bird.  
  
It was absolutely amazing. She could’ve sworn that Hephaestus didn’t have it with him when he was with her. Had he really put it together that fast? Heffy may not have been her ideal man but he was certainly amazing and anyone who didn’t think so was a total idiot.  
  
Aphrodite made her way back to her seat, set the bird down on the arm rest and went back to looking at the mortals. Things were better than they were before; she had the bird to keep her company now and music to listen to. The bird knew a surprisingly different amount of songs from every genre. She suspected that Hephaestus had known the actual reason as to why she’d said no to seeing his invention. It wasn’t that she was a horrible liar but somehow that man always managed to see through her.  
  
“Aphrodite, are you in here?” came a loud and deep voice. The smile that spread across her face was a reflex. Every time she heard that deep voice it made her happy and she always enjoyed spending time with the man who it belonged to.  
  
“Ares!” she cried and ran towards him with her arms open. He caught her in his arms, a surprised look on his face and held her tight. Aphrodite pulled back so that she could see Ares’ face and smiled up at him happily.   
  
“I take it you are glad to see me then,” Ares said, smiling down at the most beautiful woman that he had ever laid eyes on. It wasn’t saying much because Aphrodite was indeed the most beautiful woman in the world.  
  
“It has been so boring for the last couple of days; I have had absolutely nothing to do and no one’s life to meddle with. I need someone to keep me company,” Aphrodite said to Ares.  
  
“Oh, I am sure Hephaestus has been stopping by to see you,” Ares said bitterly. Aphrodite didn’t miss the resentment in his voice and couldn’t help but smile a little to herself. She found it so sweet that Ares was jealous of the fact that she was married to Hephaestus.  
  
”He has, but he is not you, Ares,” Aphrodite said. The expression on Ares’ face softened and when he looked at Aphrodite there was love written all over his face. Then again, Aphrodite could’ve just been charming him to feel that way. “Why won’t you give him a chance?”  
  
“Why won’t I give who a chance?”  
  
“Hephaestus, that’s who.”  
  
“Because he has got you!” Ares exclaimed staring at Aphrodite incredulously.  
  
“Need I remind you that I am a woman, not an object to possess, Hephaestus does not ‘have me’ and neither, for that matter, do you,” Aphrodite snapped. If there was one thing that she could not stand, it was men treating her like she wasn’t an actual human being. Oh sure, she hadn’t minded this before but time had gone on and Aphrodite had changed with the times.  
  
“Sorry, I forgot you are going through a phase,” Ares said and paled as he realized what had just come out of his mouth. Aphrodite went from annoyed to angry and then to downright livid. Her hair began to crackle with energy and float around her, her fists were clenched at her side and it looked as if she was going to punch Ares in the face. Ares may have been the God of war but Aphrodite could still beat him in a fight.  
  
“A phase, is that what this is to you, a phase?” she asked Ares in a low voice. Everything about her said “I dare you to repeat what you just said.” Ares gulped and backed away from her as she advanced forwards. “Do you have a problem with me going with the times? Is there an issue with me changing with the world?”  
  
“Not at all, I simply meant that -“  
  
“Get out,” Aphrodite hissed at Ares and turned her back on him. Everything was silent for a moment but then the sound of footsteps echoed around the hall and when Aphrodite turned around, Ares was gone. She gave a cry of frustration and went back to seat herself at her throne.  
  
Complicating everyone else’s lives was one thing, complicating her own was an entirely different matter. Watching other people solve everything in their life was entertaining, watching herself go through everything one blunder at a time made her want to tear her hair out.  
  
Back to square one it was then. Aphrodite stared down at all of the boring people who wore the same clothes, walked the same way, sounded the same, had the same hair colour and sighed. When had humanity gotten so boring? Everyone used to be different and full of life. You wouldn’t come across one person who looked the exact same and here there was a country with people that looked like clones of each other.  
  
It was becoming more and more difficult to amuse herself every day. With another sigh, Aphrodite decided that she really was quite bored of this particular country that she was looking at. Their accents were already beginning to get on her nerves and she’d only been watching this place for two days. She needed something different.  She never did go to see Hephaestus that day despite what she had said.  
  
For the next week or so, all Aphrodite did was travel around the world and watch people to see if she could find anyone interesting. She spent two to three days watching over each country before moving on to her next destination with an “ugh.”  
  
Eventually, Aphrodite ended up in England in the exact same spot that she’d been in last time. No one had bothered her for several days; no one had even entered the throne room. Except for the wind spirits bringing her drinks and food, Aphrodite had been all by herself.   
  
Popping a grape into her mouth lazily, Aphrodite looked down on Charing Cross Road and frowned when she noticed the strange empty space between two buildings. Maybe these mortals weren’t as intelligent as she clearly thought if they were all overlooking something that obvious. And in fact they were all indeed overlooking the space. No one even turned their heads to stare at the spot where there obviously should have been a building, it seemed like everyone had gotten used to it being there.  
  
And things got even stranger when one of the humans walked towards the empty space and disappeared right in front of her eyes. Again, no one seemed to notice at all, it was almost impossible. How did you miss someone disappearing in broad daylight!  
  
“APHRODITE!” Hephaestus yelled loudly bursting into the throne room and nearly landing on his face. Aphrodite was so startled she knocked over her plate of food and nearly fell out of her own seat.  
  
“For Olympus’s sake Hephaestus, you scared the living daylights out of me,” Aphrodite snapped putting a hand over her heart.  
  
“You need to see what I have found,” Hephaestus breathlessly. He was positively beaming at her; it was like he had just discovered time travel or something like that. Then again, he was always happy to see Aphrodite.  
  
“Hephaestus, if it’s another of your inventions,” Aphrodite began in a tired voice. She really wasn’t in the mood for something else that Hephaestus had built.  
  
“Yes, yes, I know, they are all stupid and boring and nothing you want blah, blah, blah what else is new?” Hephaestus replied rolling his eyes in exasperation and waving his hand dismissively. “This will actually interest you though.”  
  
Aphrodite sighed, looked up at the ceiling of the throne room before walking towards her husband slowly. As soon as she was within reach, he grabbed her hand and practically dragged her behind him as he made his way to his office. Aphrodite’s jaw nearly dropped open in shock when she caught sight of the room. There was a lot more stuff in it now than there had been when she’d been there last. Hephaestus was a quick worker.  
  
Hephaestus wasn’t paying any attention to his inventions that were littered across the room on and underneath piles of scrap metal. He was looking at the big screen hanging from his ceiling that had a view of Charing Cross Road but with a little something extra that Aphrodite’s view didn’t have.  
  
“Aphrodite, look,” Hephaestus said pointing at the screen. If she’d been in shock at everything in the room, Aphrodite almost keeled over from what she saw on the screen. The image was so similar to what she had been looking at only minutes before yet it was so different.  
  
“Is that . . . “  
  
“Charing Cross Road, you bet,” Hephaestus said with a huge grin on his face.  
  
Instead of the empty space between the two buildings, there was an old, rundown and black looking pub with a sign hanging from it that said The Leaky Cauldron. Perhaps this was the reason why people ignored the space, they didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary and they couldn’t see the building there so they didn’t pay any attention to it. Only a select few people seemed to know that the pub was there.  
  
“And this is the exact same view that I had?” Aphrodite asked.  
  
“The very same,” Hephaestus agreed. “That’s not it though, look at what is behind it.”  
  
He pointed towards the back of the pub where there was a dumpster and a wall. Aphrodite looked beyond the wall and stared at what appeared to be a whole different world hidden from most people. It was an alleyway, except instead of going straight, it was diagonal. Everything in the windows was bright and colourful and all of the people walking up and down the street wore colourful robes, pointy hats and some even carried owls and cauldrons. Some of them were waving their wands around levitating things above people’s heads while owls flew over everything else.  
  
“What is this place?” Aphrodite asked the wonder clear in her voice. This was just all so incredible. All of this had been there and she’d never even noticed it once in all the time that she’d been looking down at the road.  
  
“Well, I was talking to Athena,” Aphrodite made a face at the mention of her name, “and according to her, this was all hidden by a certain type of magic that we are assuming is done by the people in this pub or walking up and down that street. According to what Athena observed, all of those people are witches and wizards, young and old.”  
  
“Is that all that of them?”  
  
“Well, no, there’s obviously a lot more living across the country and hidden away from us. These are just the ones that are out and about. According to what Athena and I found out, this place,” Hephaestus said, pointing towards the people and the cramped shops, “is called Diagon Alley.”  
  
“Clever,” Aphrodite muttered to herself out loud. “The whole street goes in a diagonal direction and they call it Diagon Alley.”  
  
“Yes,” Hephaestus distractedly, “and this here, is called Knockturn Alley,” he went on to point at a little alley that was quite dark compared to the rest of the street.  
  
“Will you take me there to see it?” Aphrodite asked, turning to Hephaestus with an excited look on her face. He fidgeted uncomfortably and couldn’t seem to look Aphrodite in the eye.  
  
“Well, no, not at the moment. You see, you do not exactly fit in with how they act, so you would, quite frankly, stand out like a sore thumb.”  
  
“I stand out anyway,” Aphrodite said, completely dismissing what Hephaestus was saying as utter nonsense.  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, let me clarify, you would stand out even more than usual and in a very bad way.”  
  
“So, are you telling me that I cannot ever go and visit this place?” Aphrodite asked, bringing out the fake tears while pointing at the screen. If there was one thing that she knew it was that men hated crying women and would do anything to make them stop.  
  
“No, I never said that, you just cannot go down there yet. We need to get things prepared for you so that you can fit in,” Hephaestus said, completely ignoring the fact that Aphrodite looked like she was about to start wailing. “You are more than welcome to stay in here and watch the screen though for as long as you want.”  
  
“Thank you Hephaestus,” Aphrodite said, patting his shoulder and turning her attention to the screen.  The biggest shop in the place seemed to be a joke shop that appeared to go by the name of Weasley Wizard Wheezes. It had a giant head on the front of it that kept lifting a black top hat and making a bunny appear and disappear. It was the one shop that caught her attention and kept it.  
  
Oh sure, all of the other ones were all really interesting but this particular shop was definitely the most fascinating.  No matter how close Aphrodite got to the screen though she just couldn’t see what was inside that damned shop!  
  
“Hephaestus, can you zoom in on this?” Aphrodite called over her shoulder. A few clicks later and the picture had zoomed in on the shop so that Aphrodite could see what was going on in there. Fireworks were going off, Frisbees with teeth were flying around the place, people getting sick, people growing pimples on their face, people fainting and then awakening again. You name it, it was all there. It didn’t take a lot to imagine what all the sounds that everyone in that shop was making.  
  
“Hephaestus, I need to get down there,” Aphrodite said.  
  
“I told you, you cannot go-“  
  
“Down there, yeah, I got it, but please get me down to that shop eventually!” Aphrodite said with a longing tone to her voice. The place looked like so much fun; it was everything that Aphrodite had been missing.  
  
For the rest of the day, Aphrodite didn’t notice anything except for the shop. She was unaware of people leaving the room or entering it. She didn’t hear any noises or see anything besides what was on the screen in front of her. Everything in the image was getting darker as the sun set and Aphrodite only snapped out of it when a man with bright red hair stepped out of the shop wearing purple robes.  
  
His name tag said George Weasley so Aphrodite assumed that he was the owner of the best thing that she’d seen in a while. She looked him over and stopped and stared when she got to the side of his head and saw that he was missing an ear. She looked to the person next to him who was a girl with coffee brown skin, with dark hair and was sitting on her broom lazily and hovering in place. She seemed to be wearing some sort of uniform and judging from the padding that the girl had on, it was a uniform for a sport.  
  
A smile that no one had seen in days broke out on Aphrodite’s face. She had a devious look to her as she stared at the man and woman who were clearly chatting to each other like they were old friends. It looks like she had just found the people that she was looking for. There was something about the man that just made him like her and there was something about that girl that made it look like things would get a little bit rough.  
  
“HEPHAESTUS!” she yelled as loudly as she possibly could.  She waited for the sound of his footsteps to come nearer and stop next to her before turning to him with that same devious look on her face.  
  
“I have found the people I’ve been searching for.”  
  
“Alright, whose love life are you going to be messing with now?” Hephaestus asked sighing and sitting down on the edge of a nearby table.  
  
“Them,” Aphrodite replied pointing towards the red-haired man and the woman on the broom. She was going to make that couples life as complicated as possible before everything worked out in the end. It always worked out in the end; there was no other way for things like this to finish.  
  
Now if only her own life would stop being complicated and sort itself out.


	2. And Waits Impatiently

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Aphrodite, I am goddess, not a machine. Even I have my limits,"

Aphrodite was getting impatient. She had discovered this magical world full of brightly coloured and interesting people and she couldn’t go exploring. It had been weeks; surely it shouldn’t have to take so long for research to be done. Hephaestus had told her that there would need to be books read on the history of witches and wizards but how much history could they have?!  
  
 While Hephaestus and Athena were busy reading through books and making notes, Aphrodite had sat on her throne and kept an eye on that ginger-haired man and that sporty girl with the flying broom. She wanted to start messing with their lives already, they were just begging for the drama and heartbreak.  
  
“Would you like anything to drink M’lady?” asked a wind nymph, bowing.  
  
“Some tea would be lovely, thank you,” Aphrodite replied with a kind smile. The nymph disappeared in a warm summer breeze and appeared seconds later with a warm tea cup in her hand. The aurai was about to leave when Aphrodite called out.  
  
“What is your name?” Aphrodite asked.  
  
“Persis,” the nymph answered with another bow.  
  
“What a lovely name,” Aphrodite said with a smile. “Persis, would you please go and check on Athena and Hephaestus and come back and tell me what they’re doing?”  
  
“Of course M’lady,” Persis replied, bowing. It wasn’t like she had much choice in the matter either; you could never refuse a god or goddess.  
  
Aphrodite had barely sat back in her seat when Persis appeared before her mere seconds after leaving. “Goddess Athena is in the library reading through a large stack of books. God Hephaestus is in his shop hammering away at something and yelling swears at the top of his lungs.”  
  
“Typical of them,” Aphrodite said with a sigh. She stepped down from her seat and began to make her way towards the door.  
  
“Anything else M’lady?” Persis asked.  
  
“Nothing else, you have been most useful,” Aphrodite said in a tone that indicated dismissal. Persis bowed one last time and disappeared. Aphrodite hurried through the white glittering halls, taking no notice of anyone else passing by her, until she came across Hephaestus. It was never difficult to find Hephaestus; you just had to follow the banging followed by the loud swearing.  
  
“You damned thing, work you stupid piece of sh-“ Aphrodite heard Hephaestus yell.  
  
“Everything okay in here?” Aphrodite asked, leaning against the doorframe of Hephaestus’s workshop and shooting his grease-covered face an amused look. He froze with his hammer in the air and turned around from the machine that he was banging at to look at Aphrodite. The rate at which he turned red in the face was entertaining. She loved the effect that she had on him.  
  
“The monitor started acting up again,” Hephaestus replied sheepishly, motioning to the large screen behind him. The monitor seemed be cutting off at certain times and then turning off and back on. Aphrodite had never seen it act that way before. For the first time since forever, she actually took interest in something that was in her husband’s workshop.  
  
“What is wrong with it? Why does it keep doing that?” she asked and approached Hephaestus and the screen slowly.  
  
Hephaestus seemed to have gotten over his embarrassment and joined Aphrodite in looking at the monitor. He scratched his head and gave a sigh of frustration.  
  
“I don’t know, it is almost like something is messing with it, like some kind of magic is screwing with my magic and the monitor doesn’t know which one to use,” Hephaestus said frowning. Aphrodite had a very vague idea of what Hephaestus was talking about; she didn’t really understand or care about how machines worked.  
  
“Mind if I try?” Aphrodite asked Hephaestus. He gave her a look of surprise but handed over his hammer anyway. He really shouldn’t have but he did it anyway, there was just something about Aphrodite that made you want to please her and do as she said.  
  
She squinted at the monitor, tilted her head to the side and walked around it twice before taking her position at the back of the monitor. She made sure that she had a good grip on the hammer with both of hands and then got ready in a baseball stance. Aphrodite took a deep breath and then swung the hammer with all of the strength that she had. There was a loud bang that she was sure Athena heard all the way in the library.  
  
“Did it make a difference?” Aphrodite asked Hephaestus.  
  
As soon as Aphrodite came out from behind the monitor Hephaestus grabbed her hands and pulled her to him with a sharp jerk. For a second Aphrodite thought that he was going to kiss her but the idea passed when Hephaestus ended up being more interested in her hands rather than her face.  
  
That was a first.  
  
“Do you have magic hands or something? How did you do that?” Hephaestus demanded, looking Aphrodite in the eyes. He hadn’t look at her with that much intensity in a while and Aphrodite hadn’t expected it to be over some machine that she had fixed. Was she losing her touch or had Hephaestus just lost interest in her completely despite her looks?  
  
“I’m a goddess, of course I have magic hands,” Aphrodite replied dryly. “I just took a whack at it,” she amended when she saw the look that Hephaestus gave her. “Did I fix it?”  
  
“No, it’ll go back to the way that it was before, you’ve just stabilized it for now,” Hephaestus replied, rubbing his beard as he stared at the monitor intently. “I’ve got something to show you!”  
  
“I just remembered that I have to be somewhere,” Aphrodite said as soon as the words left Hephaestus’s mouth. Anything that Hephaestus had to show her that was in his shop was either dangerous or extremely boring and Aphrodite wasn’t up for either.  
  
“Relax,” Hephaestus said with a roll of his eyes. He hurried over to his work table and started to dig through the pile of metal sitting on it, throwing bits behind his back as he went. “It’s something I created to help you blend in with all of the other witches and wizards,” Hephaestus said. He held out a thin piece of wood like it was the most amazing thing since slice bread.  
  
Aphrodite stared at the piece of wood in his hands for a moment before looking Hephaestus in the face and asking, “What is it?”  
  
“It’s a wand!”  
  
“Hephaestus,” Aphrodite said, walking over to him and slinging her arm across his shoulders. “I’m a goddess, I don’t need a wand.”  
  
“I think you missed the part where I said that it was supposed to help you blend in,” Hephaestus replied.  
  
“How do I use it?” Aphrodite asked as she took the wand in her hand and inspected it closely. It seemed that the longer she knew Hephaestus the sassier he got with her.  
  
“It’s pretty much like a normal wand really, you use it to do magic instead of snapping your fingers-“ Hephaestus started to explain before Aphrodite interrupted him by testing out a spell of her own invention excitedly.  
  
“CHANGUS INTO A FROGUS!” Aphrodite shouted, as she pointed the wand at Hephaestus and drew a circle in the air with it.  
  
“No, no, don’t do that,” Hephaestus said, taking the wand away from her. “You are not a witch; you don’t know any spells, just use the wand to do your magic instead of your hands or nothing at all.”  
  
“When can I actually go down there, it’s so boring waiting up here,” Aphrodite whined, as she waved her brand new wand around, making sparks fly from the tip of it.  
  
“Not until Athena is finished doing research,” Hephaestus replied. Aphrodite no longer held his attention; he was off tinkering with something else that he had come across. Sometimes Aphrodite thought that Hephaestus cared more about his metal contraptions than he did for her. Then again, she didn’t really care about him in the way that she was supposed to.  
  
“I think it’s about time that I checked up on Athena herself,” Aphrodite muttered and without a backward glance at Hephaestus, she left his workshop and made her way towards the library. She absolutely hated the library; the place was full of books, there was dust in the air and she felt like all of the shelves were going to fall and trap her. It was also why Athena probably spent so much time in there, to get away from her.  
  
When Aphrodite arrived at the library, it wasn’t hard to find Athena. There was a castle of books surrounding a table in the middle of the room and there was no one else in the library. Only Athena would choose to stay inside instead of going outside.  
  
“Athena, are you done yet?” Aphrodite asked, popping her head over a large pile of books before her. Athena’s face was practically glued to the book in front of her. She was reading with such concentration that Aphrodite wasn’t even sure if she had heard her in the first place. She was about to ask her question again when Athena sat up and looked at her.  
  
“No, I am not done, I have to read up on the history of the wizarding world and history isn’t exactly compacted into the size of a neat little novel in case that hasn’t already occurred to you,” Athena snapped. Maybe she needed to get some rest, judging by the bags under her eyes; Athena hadn’t rested in quite a few days.  
  
“You want coffee, don’t you?”  
  
“Please!” Athena exclaimed and ran her fingers through her hair. Aphrodite couldn’t help the large smile that came on her face; Athena had a tendency to get very cranky if she didn’t have some form of caffeine once a day. Aphrodite snapped her fingers and Persis appeared next to her.  
  
“M’lady?” she asked bowing to both goddesses.   
  
“Athena would like some coffee, bring some for her before she harms someone Persis,” Aphrodite said with a wink. Persis giggled but hurried to get Athena’s coffee.  
  
“How many more books do you have to read?” Aphrodite asked as she levitated a stack of books out of her way in order to get better access to Athena. She took the empty seat on Athena’s right side.  
  
“Everything on my left I have read, everything on my right side, I have not,” Athena replied and rubbed her eyes. Aphrodite looked around with wide eyes; she wasn’t entirely sure how Athena had not already gone insane. If she had locked herself up in the library with this many books surrounding her and waiting to be read, she would’ve probably gone insane. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t locked up in the library with all of these books.  
  
“You don’t have to do this you know, I can take over some of the reading if you like,” Aphrodite had to force the offer out. She found the idea of creating a nice fire with those books a much more appealing idea than reading them but this was Athena. As much as the goddess of wisdom annoyed the Hades out of her, she was still family.  
  
“Do not lay one single finger on these books without my permission Aphrodite,” Athena replied rather aggressively. Well, that was that matter solved, Aphrodite thought. “There is so much history in all of these books it’s incredible, I will not have you spilling your nail polish on them or whatever you play with in your spare time.”  
  
“If you don’t want me to help then read faster, I’m getting tired of being forced to stay up here,” Aphrodite whined immaturely.  Persis showed up just in time to hear the goddess acting like a child. She put the coffee down but said nothing and left as quietly as she came.  
  
“Aphrodite, I am a goddess, not a machine. Even I have my limits,” Athena replied as she rubbed her temples.  
  
“But-“  
  
“Aphrodite, just leave me alone so that I can finish this,” Athena interrupted. Aphrodite got up without another word and while Athena turned her attention back to the book in front of her, she stuck her tongue out childishly and hurried out of the library before Athena could notice.  
  
Don’t do this, don’t do that! Honestly, it was like they thought she was a child who needed handling instead of a goddess. Every time she spoke to anyone, they treated her as if she were a youngster -or whatever they called those young, small people these days -who didn’t know any better. Just because she wasn’t highly intelligent like Athena, or could make amazing things out of metal like Hephaestus, or do anything useful like every other god and goddess on Olympus. The only power she had was the one that no one took seriously.  
  
Well, she wasn’t going to sit around anymore. She was going to go down on earth and meddle with that red-haired man even if it was the last thing that she did. No one was going to boss Aphrodite around.  
  
With a snap of her fingers, Olympus disappeared before her very eyes and the slightly familiar streets of Diagon Alley took place around her instead. She had fifteen minutes at most before Hephaestus noticed her on his monitor and got Athena to drag her back to Olympus (where she would get a good talking to like a toddler, no doubt). Until then, she was free to roam about as much as she pleased.  
  
Everything was even more brilliant in person; the monitor did absolutely nothing to show you what it really was like and what it really felt like to be in Diagon Alley. The colours were more vibrant and intense. The noises were louder and the conversations were stranger than Aphrodite had anticipated. She overheard one group of friends talking about something called a Crup and why you needed a license to own one.  
  
She passed by another witch complaining about how her dress robes didn’t fit her anymore and they were only a week old. She could clearly see a teenage girl dodging from bush to bush and following a boy who looked to be on a date. There were sparks flying through the air, people walking out of shops with bags and a store selling flying brooms.  
  
Everyone seemed so much livelier in this small place than everywhere else in the world, everyone seemed nicer and happier.  
  
As Aphrodite kept walking, she passed by a shop with screeching animals that drew her attention. She caught a whiff of the place as a small boy carrying a toad left the shop. The smell was _definitely_ different in person.  
  
Aphrodite walked by a colourful ice-cream parlor and decided that she might as well have an ice-cream considering she would be dragged away from this place in a matter of minutes. She walked up to the counter and told the boy standing behind the counter her order of mint chocolate chip ice-cream in a cup.  
  
He was handing her a cup with a small spoon in a matter of minutes. She looked the boy up and down in wonder, no one had ever fulfilled any of her orders that quickly. Maybe he would be useful to her on Mount Olympus . . .   
  
“That will be 10 sickles please,” the boy said.  
  
On the other hand, maybe not.  
  
Aphrodite looked the boy straight in the eyes and gave him her most dazzling smile. His face immediately went blank and his mouth dropped open. He was putty in her hands and she knew it.  
  
“You will give this to me for free,” Aphrodite said charmingly.   
  
The boy nodded dumbly and repeated her words, “I will give this to you for free.”   
  
“Good boy,” and with that, Aphrodite turned around and sauntered back outside to take a seat at a table with an umbrella.  
  
She had just relaxed in her seat when the girl with the flying broomstick that she had seen on the monitor talking to the orange-haired man walked right past her. Maybe she would just eat her ice-cream while following; after all, walking was good for you.  
  
Aphrodite followed behind the girl at a safe distance and was led  to the colourful shop full of strange things that exploded at seemingly random intervals. Aphrodite hurried into the shop after the girl and watched as she headed straight to the back and no one stopped her. Maybe this girl had more power than she thought.  
  
Aphrodite loitered around the shops and watched the ginger talk to cocoa. After observing them for a few minutes, she finally decided to approach them. She had almost reached the two of them when she felt two pairs of arms wind around her in tight grips. One was holding her waist and the other pair put their hands over her mouth. Aphrodite’s eyes widened and before she could do anything besides take in a deep breath, the store began to disappear from around her.  
  
When the arms finally let go of her, she turned around and came face to face with one very livid Athena and one very annoyed Hephaestus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta'd by the awesome Laura (or as she's known on HPFF, maraudertimes)
> 
> I'M SO EXCITED FOR THIS STORY. also ngl but i was going somewhere with these titles but it's been so long that i lost my train of thought and i have to try and come up with where to go with them.

**Author's Note:**

> this chapter was beta'd by the wonderful Laura (or as she's known on HPFF, maraudertimes).


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